What slowed Tua Tagovailoa in 4-TD, 300-yard win



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The wind whipping the garbage cans through the empty Neyland Stadium behind him, Tua Tagovailoa gave her honest assessment of the day.

An eye stained black on the cheeks, the quarterback spoke with confidence.

"I think we had two or three trainings for which we did not give the defense time to regroup, etc.," he said. "It's here that we go back to the drawing board and work on what we missed."

Alabama had just won 58-21 over Tennessee.

Tagovailoa still played 300 assists and four more touchdowns.

He was 28-0 after 12 minutes.

And the 58 points of Alabama were the most authorized of Tennessee at the Neyland stadium. They made go three and on consecutive disks and only scored touchdowns on six of the eight possessions in the first half.

Still, he has the Saban mentality never satisfied entering Alabama 's only holiday weekend. Candidate Heisman scored 19 of 29 for 306 yards in his eighth interception match.

Jerry Jeudy (11 yards), Jaylen Waddle (77 yards) and Henry Ruggs III (41 yards) made touchdowns as Alabama's 12th consecutive victory over Tennessee was routed.

Despite everything, it seemed to me that there were still yards on the ground.

"It was really windy today," said Nick Saban. "I mean, really windy, and some of his passes that he probably would have probably been a little affected, they were affected a bit, there was a bit of a crosswind as well." He was playing really well in the game. "

Tagovailoa cited another factor.

"No, the slope on the ground is different here," Tagovailoa said. "It goes up a bit, it goes down a bit, so we had to adapt to that."

There were a few throws and a few drops as he finished with a completion percentage of 67 – his second lowest after completing 54.5% last week.

Overall, Tagovailoa said his knee was feeling a lot better this week compared to last week. Saban said he could have returned to the match after a big hit in his last throw: the 41-yard touchdown pass to Ruggs in the third quarter. Anyway, they had already planned to use Jalen Hurts about that time.

Before that, Tagovailoa had his moments.

The first touchdown, this melee throw at the corner of the end zone, is only part of the chemistry built between the quarterback and the receiver.

"Things like that, sometimes it happens and everything else," said Tagovailoa. "Jerry was above his guy and I just thought I'd throw him to the free space." Jeudy made a good fit about it, he went back to the outside and made the catch. "

And the 77 yards at Waddle? The coin was originally designed to be presented to Jeudy, but when security dictated, the shooting was tight.

Alabama broke the 500-yard mark for the eighth consecutive time without one of its three-star receivers at DeVonta Smith. On the sidelines of a thigh injury, Ruggs has moved to his position for the Tennessee match.

"We did not have the best practice week because of all our moves and things like that," Ruggs said.

Jeudy and forward Irv Smith each caught five catches each with 117 yards passing Waddle on four receptions. Ruggs had three catches for 65 yards and all four had scores.

And with these four touchdown passes, Tagovailoa moves to less than five of the school season record. He has 25 games in eight after AJ McCarron's 30-point mark in 2012.

"Things are a lot more fun when you do not always have someone to go to," said Tagovailoa. "When you have runners who can make games for you too, I mean, it's just fun here."

Michael Casagrande is an author of the Alabama Beat Group of Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.

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